In recent years, a plethora of devices such as mobile phones and walkie-talkie radios have been developed for bi-directional audio communication amongst a group of mobile users. In addition to audio devices, a number of video devices, such as web cameras and videophones have been developed in order to provide bi-directional video communication amongst a group of users.
In dynamic situations such as fire emergencies, it is vital for the coordinating personnel, who are stationed at an incident command post to track the location of firefighters and other personnel on the ground, in order to observe and direct them properly. They also require the means to initiate and maintain audio and video communication link with the relevant personnel.
In the current art, the incident command post typically establishes an audio or video link with the firefighters using separate, non-integrated, systems for audio and for video communication. For example, a walkie-talkie system is used for audio communication while a closed circuit television (“CCTV”) camera is used for video communication. A computer processor may also be used to provide location information of personnel using devices that transmit such information.
Also, in the current art buildings are often equipped with various types of sensors, for example location sensors, temperature sensors, motion sensors and smoke sensors. Such sensors may or may not be connected to a computing network. Such sensors provide valuable information about location of users/resources and the information about the environment at a site location.
However, in the current art, these systems/devices (mobile phones, walkie-talkies, video phones, etc.) lack the integration necessary to communicate information for decision-making on one single interface. There is no single system that can provide centralized location and sensor information, as well as function as a communication hub. This lack of integration causes coordination and communication related problems in mission critical situations like a fire emergency.
There exists a need for systems and methods that allow natural and flexible communication/interaction in mission critical situations. There is a need to provide a bi-directional communication/interaction platform that integrates information from various location-based systems, audio- and video-streaming systems and sensor systems. Such a system would really provide, on a single interface, real time situation visibility through live video communication, and an easy and flexible interface for setting up bi-directional interaction and/or communication, and valuable sensor data.
In a dynamic environment, the ideal platform to provide such integration for the users are mobile devices such as laptops, cellular phones and personal digital assistants (“PDAs”). These devices are well-suited for the situation because:
they are compact and easy to use,
their screens are capable of video display with a reasonable degree of resolution,
they can be easily connected to a wireless network, thus aiding mobile usage,
they provide the required bi-directional communication capabilities, and most importantly,
they can be connected to a server system that integrates location information, real time video display and aids multimodality.
The ideal interface for such a platform to provide integration of sensor information and audio and video communication—would be conveniently integrated and multimodal, allowing concurrent use of input modalities such as speech, keypad, stylus gestures, and output modalities such as audio, video and map display.
Users of such an interface could perform a variety of tasks, including tracking users/resources, navigating through their environment, locating other users/resources in their environment and issuing automated commands to geographically collected resources/users using multiple modalities. Users can also dynamically update the layout of the environment on the map display to accurately reflect the situation.